


Rented Emotion

by Eternal Scribe (Shadowcat)



Category: Rent - Larson
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-04
Updated: 2013-10-04
Packaged: 2017-12-28 09:06:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/990231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowcat/pseuds/Eternal%20Scribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mimi was not a strong woman.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rented Emotion

Mimi was not a strong woman.

She knew that about herself and had always known it. She needed other people to survive like most people needed breathing. She was a really good pretender, though. She had to be in her line of work. She was able to fool most of the people that came into contact with her. She was able to project strength and confidence – two things that didn’t come as natural to her as she pretended. It didn’t matter that she was never sure of herself or what was going to happen as long as she was able to convince everyone of the opposite.

None of that mattered until she fell head over heels in love with Roger. She didn’t expect for it to be anything more than an attraction, but it was. She loved him truly and completely. She gave him everything that she could and that was just about everything that she was.

That was when the way she had lived her life – what she had made people think about her – backfired on her in a most spectacular way.

Benny lied and Roger believed it. Instead of blaming Roger for not believing in her, Mimi blamed herself. Her ability to be the chameleon and feign strength was what had made Roger believe Benny. If she had been stronger and didn’t need to be attached so deeply, then maybe she could have made Roger have more faith in her.

No matter what she said later, lashing out to hurt Roger like she was hurt, Mimi hadn’t really been surprised when he broke up with her. It was what she deserved because she hadn’t been able or maybe willing to show him how much she actually needed him.

After he distanced himself from her and they broke up, it seemed only natural for her to turn to her old friend, heroin. Heroin was her oldest friend and knew everything about her that she didn’t admit to herself. The drug never cared that she wasn’t as strong as she pretended to be. It was her friend and her shield against a world that she didn’t know how to fight against.

Mimi was not a strong woman. She needed people to love her and she needed people to lean on.

Watching Angel get sick and slowly fade away had sapped so much from her that Mimi didn’t know how she managed to keep herself going. When Angel died, it stripped Mimi of the masks that she had spent most of her life hiding behind. It was a stark reminder of how fragile her own reality was. Yes, she had become close to the others in their group, but Angel had been her original family when she arrived. Angel was her best friend, her rock and the keeper of many of her secrets and a lot of her pain. 

Angel was her anchor and then she was alone.

Angel died. Roger left town.

Mimi drifted.

Mimi drifted and at some point, time no longer had any meaning. When her illness made her body fail and the world around her turned gray, it didn’t matter. She didn’t fight back. She didn’t see the point in it. There was nothing left for her.

The park had no walls, no rules, and she could see the stars getting closer to her. Life had taken so much, had beaten her down too far, and she was ready for all of the fighting to finally be over.

She wasn’t strong, but as she closed her eyes that night, she didn’t think it mattered all that much.


End file.
